Like the temperatures on land, our tides are also rising
San Francisco’s a city defined by its proximity to the Pacific ocean, a massive expanse of saline water we continuously take for granted.
Humans are profoundly naive; we’ve become increasingly detached from the natural world. And away from the reality of what our ecosystems can carry — from the resources we use, the pollutants we release; the oceans we contaminate.
Like the climate, our oceans, too, are warming at an alarming rate.
Earth’s oceans are hotter than ever before, causing a loss of marine biodiversity we can’t truly comprehend. (The glossy PSAs about coral bleaching are striking and sobering, but how a warming planet is affecting the open and deep oceans is still only briefly understood.) What we do know for certain, however, is that life on the land is tied to whatever happens in the oceans.
Warming seas have threatened the very livelihoods of coastal communities that rely on fish supplies to feed themselves. With dystopian algae blooms becoming more common in our oceans, drinking water supplies are more at-risk of harboring deadly pathogens. Jellyfish are, quite literally, taking over the seas. Man-sized squids continue to expand their ranges. Islands of single-use plastics mound as sea levels rise.
The Bay Area, itself, could sit below sea level before even the turn of the half-century.
On World Oceans Day 2021, let’s both celebrate the coastal waters we so fondly cherish, while also expanding our practical consciousness on what it means to protect them.
(I.e. do your absolute best to thwart your water unnecessary consumption — so stop synonymizing cleaning yourself with a bubble bath. Take a three-, five-minute shower. Stop flushing urine every time your toilet water fills with a yellow murk; flush every other time or every third time. Better yet: pee in the sink. Or even go as far as to embrace composting toilets. Ditch plastic straws, entirely.)
Happy World Oceans Day, humans. Here’s to us trying to be less shitty to the bodies of water that make up 70% of the earth’s surface.
